3. Bon IverBon Iver
There’s a specific song on there called ‘Holocene’, which I’m sure you’re aware of. I heard ‘Holocene’ very recently, in the last year. I didn’t know anything about Bon Iver. Nothing at all, because unless there is some reason why something will come up or somebody introduces me because I don’t listen to music by and large, I live pretty much in silence. I don’t listen to my own music either. So, Bon Iver was doing a cover of one of my songs. And I went, ‘Well who is Bon Iver?’ [laughs]. I went up on YouTube, and there was this this piece called ‘Holocene’ and I just about fell over. I just literally fell on the floor, all but physically with my mouth open going [gasps] starting to cry [laughs].
I listened to that for a while. Every time I got a chance I would turn it on and listen to what it was saying; the brilliance of it, the subtlety of it, and oh my god, the universality of it. The whole thing was beyond me. I never listened to anything else and then when this was offered, I thought, I know I love ‘Holocene’ but I haven’t heard anything else on that album, so I had to find out what album it was on. I started listening to it. I flipped out. I didn’t hear anything I didn’t like.
What got me about that was that it’s mysterious. You can feel that mystery is coming from a very spirit-driven place, but it isn’t, right up in your face spirit-driven – it’s subtle. Part of it is that it expresses the pain of that as well. He allows the suffering to come through. In his suffering we see its incredible growth.
